Aerobatics

Aviation has been part of my life as long as I can remember so of course I have had numerous experiences that may be of interest to some of my friends.

As I stated in an earlier story I rebuilt my 1946 Cessna 120 after some major damage due to part of a hanger falling on it. After I started flying it again I had the urge to do more than just straight and level flying. I had a copy of the original owners manual for the C-120 and all it said about aerobatics was that the speed would build up quickly with the nose pointing down (surprise, surprise) so be careful to not exceed the safe airspeed or the wings would come off; something to that affect anyway. I was flying the C-120 almost every day and got where I could do just about anything with this airplane. I could land in less than 300 and on a dime. I proved this many times by landing crossways on our runway at Burns Flat. The runway was 13,000 ft long and 300 ft wide. On week-ends when the tower was closed I would land across the runway and taxi to the hanger since this was much shorter than using the full runway. The airport manager hated this and complained many time to me but as I stated in a previous story, he and I never got along.

I really wanted to do spins in this airplane because it is such a neat maneuver. In a spin the plane is almost pointing straight down and spinning but the airspeed is very low, in fact you are stalling all the way down. Current flight training doesn’t teach spins. They teach how to recognize a stall but they won’t let you spin the airplane. I thought this was stupid. How will I know how to get out of a spin if I don’t get the chance to do a spin. Therefore I hired an instructor pilot to teach me some basic aerobatics including how to spin and more importantly how to get out of a spin. I’ve included a picture of the instructor checking my harness before we took my one and only aerobatic lesson. This was a very hot day and I was in the back seat for this training. This airplane (Citabria) has two seats one behind the other. This is important because the backseat is further from the Center of Gravity which means you feel more forces during the aerobatics. This is the one and only time I almost got airsick. As we did some high G maneuvers of 3+ Gs I was almost blacking out. This is very strange because you could see in the middle but as the Gs increased the peripheral view would close in until the Gs were gone then it would go back out to full view. I finally had to tell the instructor to stop or I was going to fill up his barf bag or worse.

I took what I learned in the Citabria and applied it to my C-120. I slowly built up my routine to include full multi-turn spins, loops, barrel rolls, Split-S, and Immelmanns. You probably don’t know or care what all these are but it is very impressive if you see it from the ground. I was always careful about keeping the airspeed within limits and never pulling negative Gs. My C-120 and most other airplanes are made to take massive positive Gs (normal flight) but negative Gs are not recommended (extended inverted flight for example, or flying backwards).

One day after watching me fly this routine a good pilot friend of mine (Davie) asked me to take him up to do some aerobatics. He only had a private pilot’s license and had never done aerobatics before. Of course I said ok and off we went. We climbed to about 4,000 ft above the surface and I did some of the aerobatic maneuvers and was doing a loop (diving then pulling back until the airplane came over the top inverted then back into a dive). This is a positive G maneuver even while inverted at the top. Well this time and I don’t to this day know why, I did not apply full power as we started the climb to the top. The airplane was pointing straight up and then just quit flying. It did not have the energy required to reach the top of the loop. This is when we went to negative Gs. I had a piece of carpet on my Glareshield to cut down glare plus several cans of oil and some tools lying behind the seats. All of this stuff started floating around in the cockpit. The carpet went up and covered the windshield so I can no longer look out the front. The cans of oil were hitting me and Davie in the head. Davie is asking me what is happening and all I could say was “hang on”. My biggest concern was it felt like the plane was going to slide backwards and this was not good at all. The tail controls, elevator and rudder, are hinged at the back of the vertical and horizontal stabilizers. They are made to have air pass over them front to back. I was about to have air pass back to front and I knew that this could actually rip off the rudder or elevator (or both) with catastrophic results. I held on to the control wheel and rudder pedals with all my might hoping I could prevent this from happening but I really didn’t think it would work.

The airplane seemed to hang for eternity but then it fell on its back and entered a spin. The relief I felt when this happened can’t be described. We recovered from the spin and went in for a landing. Davie had a big smile on his face and I didn’t have the nerve to tell him how close we came to an unhappy ending.

No one needs to tell me how stupid I was and inconsiderate of the safety of others. I know it too well. At the time I had several flying friends that all felt like I did. We would fly anything, anytime and never though it was dangerous. One last example:

Another friend bought a 1940’s Taylorcraft. It is also a single engine, fabric covered, high-wing, tail dragger similar to the C-120. The new owner wasn’t checked out in tail draggers yet so asked me to take him up in it for the first time. I took off and then he took over the controls and flew around for an hour. I took back over for the landing. As we are on final with the nose pointing down I started the flare as we approached the ground. This is where you slowly raise the nose to bleed off airspeed and touch down just before stall speed. We were about a 100 ft high and as I started pulling back on the control wheel it jammed. We are descending nose down and if I don’t get the nose up we are going to hit hard on the nose and flip over on our back for sure. The chance of fire is good since the fuel is in the wing. I keep pulling and finally when it is do or die time I yank on the wheel. Something snapped and the nose came up just before hitting. The landing wasn’t perfect but good enough.

The fabric on this plane was going to be replaced by the new owner due to its age. I told him that we had to find out what caused the elevator to jam before this plane ever flew again. With his concurrence we parked the plane on the ramp in front of the operations building, took razor blades and started stripping all the fabric off the plane. This really got the attention of the other people at the airport. We inspected all the cables and pulleys and never found the cause of the jam. We surmised it must have been a screw or rock that got between a cable and a pulley and only broke loose with my last big jerk on the wheel. Just another flying story.

Flying a WWII Spitfire Mark 9

Two years ago, Liz and I were on a trip to Europe, including Germany, Switzerland, France, UK and Scotland. When we got to Paris, we both got sick but still got to see most of our planned sites in Paris.  We finally made it to London and spent several days in the hotel until we decided to fly home and cancel Scotland. As a result, we had planned to return to the UK and Scottland in a future trip.

 

Several months ago, Liz and I were on a trip to Costa Rica with her family and the trip was exhausting for me although it was a beautiful country to visit. At that point, I decided I did not want to go on long trips anymore which included our planned trip to the UK. Liz was disappointed that we were not going to go since she had been looking forward to returning.

 

As a side note, my whole adult life has been aviation oriented. I obtained an FAA Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) Mechanic License shortly after high school at 19. I spent 9 years in the USAF, 4 years as an Avionics Technician then 5 years as an Air Traffic Controller. I obtained a Commercial Instrument Pilots license along the way. I then spent 5 years as an FAA Air Traffic Controller. I owned my own airplane for a number of years. Finally, I spent over 30 years working in the Flight Simulator industry. As can be seen, I love airplanes! One day I was looking at an aviation magazine and saw that there was a spot in the UK where you could fly a World War 2 Spitfire. I did more research and realized that it was a very expensive adventure, but you were able to fly a Spitfire in a location where the Battle of Britain took place. This of course was extremely interesting to me. I, in passing, mentioned this to Liz and then forgot about it. A few days later, out of the blue, she said that if I would to go to London and Scotland I could also fly the Spitfire. My jaw dropped and I immediately agreed!

 

I called WWW.FlyASpitfire.com to get more details. The flights could be as simple as a short hop around the airfield or a much longer flight to the English Channel and White Cliffs of Dover. I, of course, wanted the more extensive English Channel option that lasted almost an hour. I was also told that with my aviation experience I would be flying the Spitfire except for take-off, landing, formation flying and any extreme maneuvers. All I remember hearing was that I would actually be flying a WWII Spitfire. I was sold. They also mentioned that they offered an option to have a chase plane fly formation with the Spitfire with up to six family or friends to observe my flight and take pictures.

 

I explained all this to Liz. I was not that confident that we would want to spend the money on this single adventure. Liz commented that she was jealous that I would be flying over the English Channel and White Cliffs of Dover and wanted to see them also. We then decided that what the hell, let’s not only do the Spitfire portion but hire the chase plane so Liz got the same experience (minus the hands-on Spitfire flying!).

 

The Spitfire I would be flying was built in 1943 and was originally a single-seat Mark 9 with a Merlin engine. Britan built over 20,000 Spitfires during the war and had many as surplus after the war that they sold to other countries. They converted a number of Spitfires into a two-seat configuration with full controls in both cockpits. These were used to train pilots for those aircraft sold abroad. The chase plane that Liz would be in would be a Piper Saratoga, retractable landing gear, commercial aircraft. The chase plane was significantly slower than the Spitfire so would leave 15 minutes early and the Spitfire would rendezvous closer to the channel 60 miles away.

 

 

I made the reservation and set a date for our flight, which was about two days after our arrival in London. The flight would be from Biggin Hill Airfield 19 miles southeast of London. Biggin Hill was one of the main airfields used during the Battle of Britan and had been bombed several times. In fact, the control tower at Biggin Hill had been destroyed two times and the third existing one had been in use since WWII.

 

As part of the pre-arrival process, I had to fill out a waiver that explained the inherent dangers of flying in an 80-year-old fighter plane that was not designed to current aircraft standards. No problem. I then had to watch an online safety/emergency operation video for how to basically bail out of a Spitfire and how to handle a crash situation on the ground. BTW I would have a parachute but the process of getting out of the Spitfire in flight to safely bail-out was not going to be that easy. There were several steps to accomplish. 1) Lower the seat to the bottom using a lever on the right-hand side of the seat. 2) Jettison the canopy using a pull cord located at the top front of the canopy. 3) Lower the small door on the left-hand side of the cockpit. (Now the tricky part) 4) Roll out of the cockpit to the left while trying not to get hit by the horizontal stabilizer which was a short distance behind my cockpit! They also provided a red crowbar on the cockpit door to use in case the canopy or door doesn’t jettison or lower. No description of how I was supposed to use the crowbar! No problem? I signed the waiver and verified I had watched the video. BTW there was a weight and height limitation for the flight. The Spitfire is not a big aircraft, and the cockpit is relatively small. My shoulders touched both sides of the cockpit and it was not that easy to keep my extremities clear of the controls while the pilot was flying. In fact, when the pilot pulled the control stick all the way back, it would hit my chest.

 

Just prior to our departure for London, I checked the weather forecast for London and determined that the day I was going to fly the Spitfire was not going to be good weather. Forecasted rain was not going to make it possible to achieve the type of flight I wanted or was willing to pay for. I called up the company and they said they did have a slot available the day prior to my scheduled date and whether appeared to be good for that flight day. I got the company to reschedule my flight for the 10:00 slot for the day with clear weather. 

 

We arrived at Heathrow airport on Monday morning and, as it happens, that was the same day that the employees of the underground Tube started their week-long strike, which meant transportation was a nightmare in London. We were able to get the only train that was available back to London for an hour and a half ride to where our Bed & Breakfast was located. We spent the rest of the day in the local area and went to bed early due to jet lag.

 

The next morning was the day of our flight. The plan was to take an Uber to the Biggin Hill Airfield. It was very difficult to get an Uber to pick us up that morning because everybody in town was using Ubers, even the people that would normally use the Tube for going to work, so traffic was jammed. Our Uber took 1 1/2 hours to get 19 miles from London to Biggin Hill Airfield. We arrived 15 minutes prior to my 9:30 show up time, at least we made it on-time, and the weather was perfect. 

 

At Biggin Hill, I met my personal assistant Amanda, who walked us through the paperwork that had to be filled out. I had to watch the video for the emergency procedures again and be issued a flight suit to wear. 

 

At this time Liz met her pilot, which was a young good looking guy and he explained what they would be doing and that she would be flying in a Piper Saratoga that had room for 6 passengers but since she would be solo, there was plenty of room to be comfortable. I met my Spitfire pilot, who was a woman named Anna Walker. Amanda had told me earlier that Anna was their most experienced Spitfire pilot and I have to say she was right.  Anna briefed me on what our flight would look like and where we would be flying and how the whole procedure would work. Once we had our briefings, both Liz and I went out to the ramp to our aircraft.

 

Liz was shown the best seat to use in the chase plane so she would have a perfect view of the Spitfire when we were flying formation plus an excellent view of the White Cliffs of Dover. They taxied out early since they were in a slower aircraft, and it was going to take them longer to get to where our rendezvous was going to be over Dover. 

 

Prior to our boarding the Spitfire, Anna asked about my aviation experience. After I gave her a rundown of my experience, she said that it was perfect and that she would be giving me the controls shortly after we took off. She advised me that the Spitfire was very sensitive to the controls, especially pitch which is nose high/low control using the control stick. She also said everyone overcontrols the first time they fly the Spitfire. That was a challenge that I was determined to beat when I got control. I did tell her that I took helicopter lessons last year and the controls were extremely sensitive, and I was told to fly only with fingertips with no sudden control movements. This satisfied her and we boarded the Spitfire.

 

I was assisted into the rear cockpit by one of the ramp personnel. He hooked up the harness for my parachute and showed me how to release the parachute harness on the ground if we had to make an emergency landing. He then hooked up the four point seat belt harness and once again showed me how to release the seat belt in case of a bail-out or on-ground emergency exit. He made a point to tell me to NOT release the wrong harness (parachute) if I had to bail out (Thanks for the extra details!). He helped me put on a helmet that included headphones and mic to use the intercom with the pilot.

 

Once I was on the intercom, Anna explained that I needed to keep my hands and feet clear of all the controls while taxiing, taking off and landing. As stated earlier, the Spitfire is not a big airplane and the cockpit is small. I’ve flown in a number of military aircraft both real and simulators, but this cockpit was the smallest of them all. The control column or stick was like none other that I’ve ever flown. Instead of a stick with a grip at the top, it had a round ring at the top where you would grasp the control. It also still had the machine gun firing trigger on the ring. With the stick all the way back, it would hit me in the chest. To clear the stick with my legs, I would hold them against the cockpit wall but while doing this I would hit the throttle and propeller control on the left cockpit wall. I would hold my feet back from the rudder pedals on a small foot ramp but a larger person would find it a challenge to keep clear of all the controls.

 

Anna started the engine, and the sound was amazing and the smoke coming off the engine came back and filled the cockpit with an aroma of pure power. The whole airplane shook with the start of 1700 horsepower, and it was fantastic. Anna then started down the taxiway towards the runway. Liz and her chase plane had left about 10 minutes earlier, so they were already sitting at the end of the taxiway when we got there. Anna spun the Spitfire around on the taxiway, facing back where we came from so that the engine was facing into the wind. The engine would overheat if it was sitting for very long without some air flow over the cooling radiators. Anna completed the Before Take-Off Checklist, including engine run up and magneto check, then spun the Spitfire back around ready to depart. Liz had departed 10 minutes earlier on her way to the Dover Cliffs. 

 

Anna received clearance from the Control Tower and taxied onto the runway and began her take-off roll. She slowly applied power and the Spitfire accelerated quickly. This engine has so much power and torque that a fast application of power would overpower the capability of the controls to keep the nose in line and a loss of control could happen. This was a serious problem with inexperienced pilots learning to fly the Spitfire in WWII. The two-seat conversion of the Spitfires didn’t happen until 1950’s, after WWII. The first flight for a new pilot would be a solo flight in the airplane.

 

As soon as we became airborne, Anna turned the controls over to me. I spent a lot of time just getting the feel of how the aircraft would respond to the controls and focused on trying to hold altitude, air speed and heading as we headed towards the coast. Anna gave me corrections to the heading such as “turn right 30 degrees” to keep me heading in the correct direction. On our way over to the coast, which was about 60 miles from Biggin Hill Airfield, we flew over Leeds Castle, which is a beautiful castle on a little island with a surrounding moat. She had me do a pylon turn over the top of the castle, which basically means holding your wing tip on the point on the ground while you fly a circle over that point. This is one of the techniques you learn as a pilot and especially a commercial pilot. I was holding a pretty mild bank angle when Anna said use much more bank to keep the circle in closer. At that point I banked much more and could feel the G forces increase due to this more aggressive turn, Love It!

 

As we got closer to the coast, we spotted an airplane up ahead of us slightly higher than we were. We started closing on that aircraft thinking it was Liz and the chase plane. As we got closer, we realized that it was not Liz' chase plane but we had already pulled up behind him about 200 yards off the left rear quarter. Anna took the controls and applied power to speed past the other aircraft on the left side. Not real close, but close enough that it would have been a surprise if you saw somebody come up past you in a WWII fighter. 

 

We continued towards the coast and as we got closer, we spotted Liz’ chase plane up ahead and much higher than we were. We came up behind them on their left side and pulled up in a sweeping climbing turn. I've flown in formation with other aircraft many times when I had my own airplane, but we were very close to the chase plane as we merged. I was a little nervous until I realized how easy it was to hold position while in formation flight. The Spitfire has so much control that just a slight move of the control stick is required to hold position.

 

At this point, we were flying along the Dover coast over the English Channel. Meanwhile, Liz was inside the other aircraft taking some great pictures using her iPhone out the side window. In addition, the chase plane had GoPro cameras on each wing tip, and we were right in the view of one of those cameras as we flew in formation. These GoPros captured some terrific videos as we flew in formation and later as we made several high-speed passes of the chase plane. In addition to the two cameras on the wing tips of the chase plane, there was a camera in my cockpit, pointed towards my face, which captured all my facial expressions and another one over my left shoulder looking through the cockpit forward so you can see what the pilot view would be.

 

Anna at this point swung underneath the chase plane, left to right, behind the rear of the aircraft and pulled back on the right-hand side in formation. The Spitfire was then picked up by the other camera. We stayed there for a short time while Liz took a few pictures looking out that window and then we swung back underneath the chase plane again over to the left echelon and sat there for a few more minutes. About this time Anna made a hard left bank and dived away from the chase plane on a sweeping turn toward the ground and then came back up to make several high-speed passes of the chase plane. On our last high-speed pass, we wagged our wings and headed back in-land and left the chase plane, which headed back to Biggin Hill.

 

I was flying at this time and Anna asked if I was up for some aerobatics!  I said of course so she took back the controls and performed several steep banking turns to look for traffic (found none). For most of our flight, we had been flying at around 200 mph (even though the Spitfire can fly up to 400 mph). There was a broken cloud bank at about 3,000 feet that provided a perfect background for pictures. We were close to the coast, so the ground elevation was only around 100 to 200 feet above sea level. We were flying in uncontrolled airspace, but controlled airspace started at 2,500 feet above sea level, and we had to stay out of controlled airspace. This meant we had about 2,000 feet of airspace to play in. That’s not a lot of airspace to do aerobatics but more importantly, I was thinking, I’m not sure I could bail out of this thing with only that amount of elevation below me! That thought lasted only a second because that is when Anna started the first Victory Roll (barrel roll).

 

I watched very closely how she performed the Victory Roll, and this is the procedure she used. At the start we were doing 200 mph. She dived the aircraft about 10° to get up to 250 mph and then pulled the nose up slightly until it was about 20° above the horizon. She then rolled the Spitfire to the left for a full revolution and ended with the nose on the horizon again and air speed back to 200 mph. A nice smooth easy roll. We did a few more steep clearing turns and she asked if I wanted another one. Please may I have another! She performed the same procedure again and it was as perfect as the first.

 

I was given control and we headed back towards Biggin Hill Airfield. She gave me heading corrections to get us set up for a straight in approach to the runway. When we were about two miles from the runway, Anna took back control and made a smooth approach to the runway and a wheels landing, which basically means you land on the main gear, with a little bit higher speed and then drop the tail wheel once your speed drops. I owned a taildragger years ago and I have lots of taildragger flying experience and it is a different airplane than one with a nose wheel. You have to stay on the rudder at all times to stop it from swinging and causing a ground loop.  Add the large amount of torque from this big engine and the narrow main landing gear and that makes this airplane a challenge to land.

 

We rolled out to the end of the runway and turned off onto the taxiway and back to the Biggin Hill heritage hangar parking spot. The ground crew were there and guided us into our parking spot. Anna shut down the engine, and it was strange how quiet it got after sitting in the airplane for almost an hour with the sound of the Merlin engine. Anna got out of the front cockpit and was standing on the wing while the ground crew came over to my side, put a stair up to the airplane and opened my cockpit. I was sitting there in the airplane as Liz came over and started taking several pictures. That was the end of my most exciting flight in any aircraft.

 

As part of the flight package, we were given a guided tour through the Fly A Spitfire Heritage facility. This is very impressive, especially for me with my aviation and aircraft mechanic background. They not only have three twin-seat Spitfires used for flights like mine, they have full manufacturing capability used to maintain and restore vintage aircraft. In their hangar they had several versions of the original single seat Spitfire but also a P-51 Mustang, Harker Hurricane and German BF-109, plus much more. They also had many parts of aircraft they have accumulated to maintain their fleet since these items are extremely rare and hard to find. I enjoyed this tour tremendously. I met several young mechanics working on these famous aircraft and thought that it would be a great job for someone who loves these airplanes.

 

We ended our adventure at the airport coffee shop waiting for an Uber to take us back to our London Bed & Breakfast.

 

Some new information I've obtained just recently after we had been back home for several weeks. I was curious about the history of the Spitfire I flew and did some research with interesting results.

• Built in the Autum of 1943 and designated serial number MJ627
• Aircraft identifier for operations and painted on the side of the aircraft - Q9G
• 20,351 Spitfires were built from 1938-48 with 240 still existing and 60 still flying
• Entered service with number 441(Silver Fox) Sqn, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) on Sept 25, 1944
• Sept 27, 1944 shot down BF-109 near Arnhem, Belgium (Market Garden operation) Pilot Officer Sid Bregman
• Mar 9, 1945 Gear Up landing, engine problems, Orkney Islands, Scotland (repaired)
• Jul 1950 converted to twin seat TR9
• Apr 25,1998 Gear Up landing, gear problems,  Coventry, UK (repaired)
• 2024 Cockpit Canopy departed aircraft, Biggin Hill, landed safely
• May 3, 2025 Gear Up landing, engine problem Kent UK (Biggin Hill) (repaired)
• Sep 9, 2025 Mike Stanley flight

 

I was not surprised that the aircraft had been in 3 emergency gear up landings over its 80+ year life considering how these airplanes are used in flight operations. It was a surprise that the last emergency landing happened only 4 months prior to my flight. This airplane is perfect for gear up landings with minimal damage. Except for the two cooling radiators under the wing, the aircraft is totally flat and could land on grass with little damage. Of course, the radiators would be torn off but no damage to the wing. Another key item for gear up landings on most aircraft is damage to the engine when the metal propeller suddenly stops when it hits the ground. This usually requires the engine to be disassembled to check for internal damage. The Spitfire I flew has wooden propellers which shattered when they hit the ground and probably did no damage to the engine. You can see in one of the crash pictures that one blade of the 4 is still intact meaning the engine was not even running when it landed. Even though I did not know this history when I flew the Spitfire, it would have made no difference, and I would still have taken the flight. This is based on my own aviation experience of having an engine quit two different times (pilot error both times) plus having a jammed elevator while landing during another incident. I also had to rebuild my 1946 Cessna 120 after it was damaged by a tornado plus rebuild the engine at the same time. If you fly vintage aircraft like I have most of my flying career, you have to accept a little risk for the thrill of the flight!

 

The whole flight was a fantastic experience. I would recommend it to anybody who is a history and aviation nerd like I am. What makes this such an exciting event was I got to fly a historical aircraft over the same area as the Battle of Britan from one of the airfields used for that battle. While flying over the English Channel along the White Cliffs of Dover I could see France in the distance, only 22 miles away. It made me realize how close Germany was to invading England and the Spitfire was one key reason it did not happen. Two years ago, Liz and I were in France and visited Normandy and Omaha Beach. It is a mind-blowing experience to be doing this right where it all happened 80+ years ago. Thanks Liz, for making it happen!